The Colours We Hate
by DooodleBerry
Summary: THC, Ravenclaw Fifth Year Stand In, Standard


{ :Standard Backup Round Two: }

House: Stand in- Ravenclaw

Position: Stand in Fifth Year

Wordcount w/o AN: 1,297

Name: The Colours We Hate

Prompt{s}: Colour {Burgundy}

 **A/N: This is obviously not canon, and Draco acts a bit different from how he is portrayed in the books. He has some mental health issues and such, but nothing too major is covered in this story. Hope you all enjoy!**

It all started with the colour burgundy. I despise that color, really I do. I hadn't always despised it, at most I mildly disliked it. The hatred only began after _that_ day. It had been a cold day, not _too_ cold, but cold enough that one would need a sweater. I'd been cuddled up near the fireplace next to my boyfriend, Harry Potter, in his common room up in Gryffindor tower.

Quite a spectacle we were, The Slytherin Prince, and The Boy Who Lived. Not that I cared, well that's not entirely true. Most times in public we were practically one of the exhibits in a zoo. We'd been sitting on the couch when the Weaslette entered the room. I knew her name of course, it was Ginny, but calling her the Weaslette had become more familiar. A term of endearment if you would.

I'll never forget the colour she had been wearing. I had, a few days prior, told her that she might look good in red-purple shades, like a Burgundy. I was right of course, she looked fantastic in the color. She had taken my advice and was wearing a few different shades of reds, each one complimenting the others. I'd shown her how to use complimentary colors and different shades of the same colour by writing her a very lengthy book about the subject.

On her lips was a Burgundy lipstick, I had to admit it complimented her skin tone spectacularly, but it drew the eyes of my beloved away from everything else. Including me.

"Nice lipstick, what shade is it?" He had asked her, much more interested, I was sure, in her than the colour itself..

"Burgundy. Draco helped me pick it out, actually." She'd replied, blissfully unaware of the advances Harry had been seeming to make on her ever since she entered the room. Harry began conversation with the Weaslette and was asking her about colour and what matched _his_ skin-tone. I had been hurt, he'd left me alone in a lion's den, and was talking to the Weaslette about a subject he'd never seemed to care about before.

I had gotten up and went over behind him to mutter a goodbye, it was discouraging to see that he hadn't even noticed. As time wore on he'd spend less and less of his time around me, and more of it around the Weaslette. It was as if the Burgundy had charmed him into seeing nothing but _her_. I had begun to notice the colour more and more too, something that drove me insane. It was in the clothes the female students preferred to wear, the flowers that bloomed in the spring. In the many things of summer too. It was _such_ a painfully beautiful colour.

What hurt me the most was when we'd been sent home for summer break. I had never gotten a single letter. I remembered how Harry had used a burgundy ink in all his letters because that was all he was allowed to have. I'd gotten nothing. Not an owl, not a letter. _Never_ had I felt so alone as I had that one summer, the colour burgundy consuming my mind. I noticed it in every meal, every outfit, every pigment of someone's skin. And it triggered emotions I'd never wanted.

It triggered me to start crying uncontrollably, and I couldn't be surrounded by anything even slightly resembling that wretched colour. Eventually I'd trained myself to only feel the intense pain the colour brought, instead of showing it on the outside. However, I'd only been training myself with small amounts of the colour. When there was more of the colour present I would begin to have a panic attack, I'd had them before, therapists said it was from war trauma. Now was different, because normally Harry had been there to comfort me, this thought proved to only make things worse.

When the time came to go back to school after the break, I found Harry sitting at his usual table, and I slid him a note, trying not to notice the burgundy colour he had in his hair nestled deep under the brown, the highlighted strands of his hair that shone whenever he walked into the light. By the time he'd finished his conversation with the Weaslette, he'd looked down to find the note, seemingly delivered by no one. I'd had the time to sit back at my table, trying to focus only on the green, but even in my own house, the trend of Burgundy had taken over, I could feel a panic attack coming, and I knew I had to leave.

I had tried to keep my cool as I walked out of the great hall, however as I left I was surrounded by more and more of that despicable colour. I had begun to sprint, all the way to the fifth floor, where I noticed a brilliantly brown door. One that I'd recognized as the door to the room of requirement, exactly where I'd told Harry to meet me. I had, obviously, hoped that the room would sense my requirement of the colour Burgundy being nowhere to be seen. My breath had been held as I opened the door, knowing full well it'd vanish as I entered. To my relief the colour Burgundy was nowhere to be seen.

I'd rejoiced and then checked the time, it was 12:24am. Just past midnight, how the time passed so quickly I'd had no idea, maybe the room sensed my longing for Harry and I's meeting to approach, so I could get all of this off my chest. Just as I'd been losing hope, the door had creaked open. My head snapped around to see Harry entering the room. He was the only thing in the room that was covered in the horrid Burgundy colour that had tormented me so much. I'd tried to play it cool, feigning being tired as an excuse to lean against the wall and sit down, I'd curled myself into the tightest ball I could, Harry had stayed put. I'd wondered if he'd remembered that this was what I'd always done when a panic attack was occurring.

Though judging by the look on his face, it was almost painfully clear that this had completely blanked his mind. This had caused the symptoms to be worse, and I'd had to take a moment to center myself before I had addressed him in a shaky voice.

"Why didn't you write me over the summer?" I'd asked him, my voice was cracking, but he'd seemed to be almost hurt by my question.  
"Why?" He'd started his reply in a bitter sort of whisper. I'm sure that I died a little inside, wondering how he had become so bitter towards me. Yet still I'd awaited the rest of his reply, my mind slowly becoming a warzone.

"Because, I was spending the summer with Ginny and her family." He'd replied, as if it was obvious and I'd have known all along that he'd been _there_ all summer. I'd only been able to mutter a soft "oh" before curling up into an even tighter ball. I'd desperately wanted him to leave so I could cry in peace, I hadn't wanted to cry in front of him, but I'd been so hurt by him and that absolutely wretched colour he seemed to be oh so infatuated with, that it'd been hard to hold my emotions in.

Without him even prompting it, I'd begun to explain to him what I'd been noticing, and he seemed to be shocked by my accusation that he might've fancied the Weaslette. I had told him about the colour Burgundy and the role it'd been playing, about the panic attacks it induced, about how all I could think and see was that colour. I'd never seen him so caring towards anyone as he had been to me after I'd told him everything. Harry had assured me that there was nothing between the Weaslette and himself.

He'd just been overly interested in her, because he and Ron were at odds and he hadn't been feeling himself, so he'd thought if he befriended the Weaslette, that it would better his friendship with Ron. Surprisingly it did. We'd ended up sitting in the room forever, him making me forget all my troubles. It was odd to think...

All of this hardship was because of the colour Burgundy.


End file.
